Cheap Cake Lady Or Man

AQuestion? How do you price your cakes accordingly if these are the prices for a 3tier fondant cake 10,8,6 for $130, another baker $140, and another $180. I know each baker has different ways of baking and obtaining their supplies. How do most of you bakers deal with it?

If you're asking how to price a cake, there are a ton of threads here that you can read about that. If you're asking how to deal with cheap cake lady/man, I ignore them. They're not my competition. It's a waste of my time and energy to even think of them.

If I charged that for that sized cake I wouldn't be making any profit. I've done cakes for long enough that I know what percentage of costs my ingredients should be, what percentage I net after taxes, and what I expect to make per hour. It's hard to hand someone a formula because there are a lot of moving parts and you can't just say do this,this, this and multiply by 5 to figure out a price...

The cheap cake people will either burn out, or they'll be a thorn in your side forever. It depends on whether they think making $3 an hour is good or not, and unfortunately there are people who do. You need to price according to what's right for you, and market yourself to attract customers who will pay what you're charging. That may or may not be possible in your area, so if that's the case you need to decide whether it's worth your time to have a cake business, The market is so saturated at this point the rules have changed, so all the pricing advice that you might find on here may or may not be relevant depending on when it was written. It's all very tricky.

Yeah, um, there is no way I'm trying to fit into that price range. 3 tier fondant cake from me is in the $270 range.

You at least need to know your actual cost to make it- including paper towels, dishsoap, electricity. There are a lot of threads on here like others have said.

Then you figure how much time the project will take you. Pay yourself an hourly wage based on your skill and/or experience level

THEN you go and look at what others are doing. See how you stack up. Adjust from there, either slightly up or slightly down. I have to take into account also that it is a drive to get to me. Usually about 20-30mins. And most bakeries only take 5-10 mins in the area. SO while I should be pricing above most of them, I price near or only slightly above because of that factor.

So much going into it, but like was said if the area is saturated....then all bets are off I guess. We're getting closer in this area, but not quite. Cottage food law was stopped for another year.

Anyway, the point is that you don't START at what others are charging. It's part of the process, but shouldn't be the first thing you address.

AI have my prices and starting prices. It just baffels me that someone would want to do all that work and charge $130 for a cake that size. I started out the same way charging like this and quickly got burned out and revamped my prices. I rather do 2 cakes a month, than do cakes every weekend and not get paid for my worth.